The Angel Song
LUKE 2:8-20
Heavenly Host Sing:
“Behold! I bring you good news of great joy which will come to all people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.
And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manager.
Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!
Good news of great joy…right? To all people… A Savior… Peace among men… God is pleased. The world has been anticipating a savior. The church has been faithfully hoping and waiting. The Messiah has arrived. Good news! Who believed the angels had appeared? Who rejected the news? How did the community of faith respond to each other for embracing or dismissing the news of a Mesiah? We know what the shepherds did. The shepherds went together to Bethlehem, they found the Messiah and celebrated the good news with Mary and Joseph. However, we don’t all hear good news. This report from the shepherds is also the catalyst for:
Skepticism
Fear
Factions
Power struggles
Ulterior motives
And eventually a genocide
What division did the report from the shepherds bring to the community. I imagine a lot of debate about the authenticity of the Shepherds. I imagine the vitriol, contempt, eye rolling, and smugness that would happen today if the homeless people camping under the freeway showed up with the good news of great joy that they heard from an angel and the Heavenly Host announcing the birth of the son of God.
I believe the division comes from us putting more in the “essential bucket” of our faith than that which truly deserves to be in the bucket. I hear good news and I start asking the question, “how does this good news affect me?” “How does Grace and Unconditional Love affect my family, my comfort, my wealth, my power, my place in this world…?” “How can I hang on to this Good News AND…all the rest”
A few weeks ago, at FPC, we sang the Hymn, Be thou my Vision. I was stuck that Sunday by the second line of the Hymn,
Not be all else to me save that thou art.
The poet is saying, ‘God, don’t let me, misguidedly, make you more than God. Don’t let me add something beyond the essential to my relationship with my God.’ The essential is what the Shepherds heard from the Heavenly Host. The essential draws us nearer to our God and brings us together as a community. The rest separates us from our Savior and the baggage of “all else” divides us.
As I sang along to the hymn, the poet’s words pierced my failure. The words of the hymn reveal my tendency to add other things to the good news from our High King of Heaven.
Riches I need not, nor man’s empty praise
Thou mine inheritance through all of my days
Thou and Thou only, the first in my heart
High King of Heaven my treasure thou art
How do I hear the good news more like the Shepherds? How do you hear the good news?